Kindergarten Nursery Rhymes

While collaborating with my Kindergarten teachers, they mentioned that they have a hard time finding time to teach Nursery Rhymes.  As a former kindergarten teacher... I heard bells ringing and the HALLELUJAH chorus!!!  I would loooooove to teach Nursery Rhymes!  So began my Kindergarten Nursery Rhyme unit.

I started with Humpty Dumpty which I figured was familiar to most kiddos.  After reading and chanting the rhyme several times, the kids colored little foldable Humpty Dumpty books so they could take the rhyme home with them.  I downloaded a whole set of foldable nursery rhyme booklets from Teachers Pay Teachers- super cute!  I read the book Humpty Dumpty Climbs Again (which, of course, was hilarious because it said the word "UNDERWEAR" several times).

I had some left over egg crafts from a previous Easter Literacy Night, so they made their own Humpties.  Such personality on these little eggs!

And last but not least, we built walls with blocks and tried to balance our Styrofoam Humpties on our walls (beginning STEM activity??!!).  I wanted to use plastic Easter Eggs for this but they are hard to find in September...I'll have to remember that next April!

Next, we will be "Hey, Diddle, Diddling".

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First Grade Research is EPIC!

Have you used EPIC!?  I'm a big big EPIC! fan.  It's a free website/app that has a TON of ebooks. It has a lot of non-fiction, graphic novels and popular titles (my kids love Scaredy Squirrel).  It has an AR reading level and some of the books have a "Read-to-me" option.  Did I mention it was free- whaaaaaaaaaatttt??!!!

Which brings me to our first research project for my first graders.  As the season changed, they were studying fall.  I didn't have a lot of non-fiction books about fall that were on a first grade reading level.  Good ole' EPIC! had 7 titles for my kids- all in their reading level range!  In my library, I have 8 computers and 8 iPads.  The kids on the computer worked alone (because they needed headphones) and the rest worked with a partner on the iPads.  Each person got a leaf and they had to write down one fact that they learned about fall.  After sharing, they glued it on the bare tree that I had prepared and the end result was a Fall Research Tree.  Easy, effective and a great use of resources!

During the lesson, we were also able to talk about what research is, why we research and even fiction/non-fiction (there was another book called Humpty Dumpty's Great Fall that came up when they searched "Fall" -would that work for our research?  would this be good information for our research?)

And yes...all the 1st grade teachers in my building are this cute!  Love these girls!

   

Leave a Comment Tags: First Grade, Library Lessons, Research

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Pirate Literacy Night

Our Family Literacy Nights are a BIG deal at our school!!  Each month, we host a big party in the library (woot! woot!) to encourage parent involvement.  It is the part of my job that wears me out the most but one of the things that I LOVE the most too!!  September was our Pirate Night.  We always have a combination of games, crafts, snacks and oh yeah...thematic books to read.  It really is a fun time and a great way for me to connect with families in my building.  I love it!  Our Pirate Night had 248 people attend- I told you it's a BIG deal!

Making Hand Hooks

Swab the Deck Game

Photo Booth Fun

Decorating Treasure Chests

We also had a Treasure Dig, Walking the Plank, Cannonball Fights, and Pirate Hat Making.  For snacks, we served Pirate's Booty and Ocean Water (blue kool-aid).

We aaaaarrreeee always up for a party in the library!!!

Leave a Comment Tags: Literacy Nights, Pirates

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Our Tree Named Steve

Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel, Illustrated by David Catrow

This is by no means a new book (published 2005) but is one of those unfamiliar gems that I discovered in my library.  I wasn't familiar with the author- who I now found out was one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live.  So cool!  But I love love LOVE David Catrow's illustrations (think Molly Lou Melon and I Wanna Iguana) - that's what first drew me to this book.  I fell in love with this sweet coming of age story.   There are so many great lessons that could go with this book- life cycles, ecology, etc. but I used it with a lesson about text-to-text connections along with Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.  Love both of these books so much that I loved this lesson just because the quality of the literature!!

Leave a Comment Tags: Book Reviews, Library Lessons, Text to Text Connections

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